for their rights. (Crawford, Rouse and Woods, pp. 60-64). Ella Baker has been described as a leader behind the scenes, but not a leader to be ignored. Without her work and dedication, many ordinary people might never have been exposed to the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa ParksRosa Parks, who has been considered the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”, was not looking for recognition or to be shone in the spotlight in the movement. She was a quiet, but strong-willed women, who for several years had worked for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and worked with the association’s Youth Council. (Williams, p. 66). Mrs. Parks became involved in fighting racial injustices that black people were being subjected to by segregationist and the laws of segregation. But on one particular day, December 1, 1955, she was as tired as any white person that worked that day, and felt that she had the right, as any other human being to sit where she wanted to on the public bus. She was of course arrested because she declined in giving up her seat that day to accommodate a white man, but her quiet strength and dignity launched a boycott of the Montgomery buses that would last almost a year. It was Rosa Parks active involvement with the NAACP that led to her arrest. Because of her character, considered to be soft-spoken and mild-mannered, she became the symbol that the Montgomery NAACP and the Women’s Political Council needed to challenge the laws of segregation. She continued to work behind the scenes for the NAACP and the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rosa Parks may not have been an organizer, or a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, but I think that because of her, the Civil Rights Movement heightened to another level in that it forced African-Americans to really get involved and become a part of the movement. Just deciding to not ride the bus, was ...
